He has been in the minority on three previous occasions, but each time he voted for a change in policy the rest of the committee fell into line at the next meeting.

Most economists now expect policy to remain unchanged when the decision is announced on Thursday, with the vote likely to fall the same way as last month, when Sir Mervyn was joined by external MPC member David Miles and Paul Fisher, the Bank’s executive director for markets.

“If they don’t vote with him it will be a first,” Geoff Dicks, chief economist at Novus Capital Markets, said. “I would interpret that as Mervyn King’s swansong.”

The Governor has just four rate-setting meetings left before he hands over to Mark Carney, the current Governor of the Bank of Canada, and many economists believe the Bank is preparing to take further action on QE before then.

Kevin Daly, at Goldman Sachs, said that while “it would not be a major surprise” if the MPC voted for more QE this month, “this is not our central expectation”. Instead, he reckoned the committee will devise new stimulus measures to be unveiled “in the months ahead”.